Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “Obama's "No Child Left Alive" Policy”

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August 18, 2008

Obama's "No Child Left Alive" Policy

Hatched by Dafydd

I rarely do this, as you know -- publish a post that simply repeats the reasoning of somebody else's article. But David Freddoso on National Review Online has an article that is so powerful and urgent that I'm inclined to emphasize it here, following the lead of Scott Johnson at Power Line.

According to Freddoso's research (along with that of the Springfield, Illinois chapter of the National Right to Life Committee), Obama voted against a bill that came before his committee in the Illinois state senate in 2003 that would simply have declared that any baby who survived an abortion attempt, and was accidentally born alive instead, shall be considered a human person with all the rights of any other baby born alive. The bill was in response to Chicago hospitals that were taking second shots at such improperly born children, making sure the "procedure" was successful, no matter how many times it took -- and no matter whether the abortion was finished before or after live birth.

But now he has realized that this vote may come back to haunt him in his quest for the presidency... so he's brazenly lying, claiming the bill was instead an attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade.

What makes this even more flagrant (and vile) is that the bill included language -- which Obama and every state senator on the committee, unanimously inserted -- explicitly avowing that it only affected the rights of babies that had actually been born alive and would have no impact whatsoever on foetuses still in the womb.

It would not even have forbidden partial-birth abortion, since the body of the bill explicitly defined a live birth as "the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of that member [of the species homo sapiens];" as partial-birth abortion means an incomplete extraction (as the name implies), its legality would not have been affected by this bill.

(What it would have affected is a botched partial-birth abortion, where the doctor accidentally delivers the entire baby, rather than everything but the head. It would have prevented hospitals from picking up the fully born baby and continuing with the "procedure" -- prying open the infant's skull and sucking out her brains with a vacuum.)

I really want John S. McCain and the GOP to jump on this: It's so obviously mendacious a denial, about an issue that is so fundamentally repulsive to real Americans -- letting living, born babies die of exposure in order to punish them for surviving an abortion attempt -- that I cannot see how he can weasel his way out of it.

And please bear in mind... I am pro-choice on abortion up to about two-thirds of the way through pregnancy. Nevertheless, I am not pro-choice on infanticide, which is what this bill was designed to prevent. And there is no way anybody living in a civilized culture (anybody but a lunatic liberal) can justify killing a post-born infant by deliberate neglect (starvation, dehydration, cold)... just because the mother originally wanted it removed from her womb.

All right; it's out. Why must they slay it as well?

Obama's policy itself is murderous, and his vain attempt to lie his way out of it deeply offends my intelligence and shocks my conscience.

(I have put the full text of the law in the "slither on," along with the modifying amendment unanimously adopted by the committee.)

Here is the complete text of SB1082, introduced on February 19th, 2003, into the Illinois state senate; the unanimous "neutrality language" amendment is shown in blue at the end, replacing the crossed-out section immediately above it.

AN ACT concerning infants who are born alive.

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly:

Section 5. The Statute on Statutes is amended by adding Section 1.36 as follows:

(5 ILCS 70/1.36 new)

Sec. 1.36. Born-alive infant.

(a) In determining the meaning of any statute or of any rule, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative agencies of this State, the words "person", "human being", "child", and "individual" include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.

(b) As used in this Section, the term "born alive", with respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of that member, at any stage of development, who after that expulsion or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion.

~~(c) A live child born as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law.~~

(c) Nothing in this Section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being born alive as defined in this Section.

Section 99. Effective date. This Act takes effect upon becoming law.

Here is the history of the bill. "Session Sine Die" at the end means that Illinois state senate term expired without any further action on the bill (meaning it was killed in committee).

And here is a list of the members of the senate Health and Human Services committee in the 93rd General Assembly; note that Barack Obama is the "chairperson."

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, August 18, 2008, at the time of 3:12 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: hunter

Obama is not nearly as charismatic or clever as he needs to be to pull this scam of his off.
I think his wheels are coming off pretty quickly now.

The above hissed in response by: hunter at August 18, 2008 7:39 PM

The following hissed in response by: AMR

I am ambivalent about abortion, but I have been against partial-birth abortion except whenever the actual life of the mother was at risk; not this BS about her mental state being enough. This is murder and I don’t say this lightly. We can debate when a human being is exactly that, but the discussion ends with the birth.

The above hissed in response by: AMR at August 18, 2008 11:11 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dan Kauffman

After birth the child is entitled to full Civil Rights under the Constitution. I don't see any need for any new Laws we have adequate laws already to handle setting a baby aside so it can die.

The above hissed in response by: Dan Kauffman at August 19, 2008 3:58 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Dan Kauffman:

I don't see any need for any new Laws we have adequate laws already to handle setting a baby aside so it can die.

Evidently not in Chicago, a.k.a. Obamaland.

Here is the problem: The law allows a woman and her doctor to "abort" an otherwise viable foetus -- say via partial-birth abortion. Once those two have decided to do so, what is the legal status of the foetus? Obviously nil.

So (and here's the tricky point) how does that status change, merely because the first attempt to "abort" (kill) the seven-month foetus failed? If it's morally just to kill a viable foetus in the womb, how can it be morally unjust to kill it more conveniently outside the womb?

(For me, the tipping point is not the location of the killing -- but the stage of gestation; once the cerebral cortex forms and activates, then I say it's a person and inherits all the rights and liberties of a person.)

The law, however, is very murky on this... hence the proclivity of hospitals in the windy city to set children out to die after the abortion fails -- sort of a "fail safe" for the original decision to abort... eh?

I think it was perfectly reasonable for senators who oppose infanticide (that is, Republicans) to attempt to clarify the law in favor of a living, post-natal baby. And it was an act of depraved indifference to human personhood for Obama and five other Democrats to vote to withhold such protection.

Once a developing zygote/embryo/foetus has developed into a human person -- whenever one decides that is -- then it's clearly homicide to kill it. It can be justifiable homocide, if the killing was to save the life (not merely health) of the mother; but in the cases at hand, that cannot be... since the babies were already born, expelled from the womb, by definition.

Thus, I say it should be considered negligent homicide, voluntary manslaughter, or murder. But I do not write the laws for the state of Illinois (or, now that I think on it, for any other state as well!)

So my opinion is worthless.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh at August 19, 2008 4:47 AM

The following hissed in response by: Steelhand

Your opinion is not worthless; it is merely powerless.
However, there are two points of discussion here: the ultimate question of the establishment of personhood, which will not be answered here, or most likely, anywhere else in my lifetime to the satisfaction of all interested parties; and the question of Obama's unwillingness to stand on any politically inexpedient position.

In view of the latter, how can anyone seriously consider a vote for a cipher? What does he truly believe? What decisions can you actually expect if you pull the lever for him? We have ideas, some of them being more likely than others. But is there any point on which he firmly stands his ground in the face of pressure? Is there any position he will hold despite the potential for political consequences?

The above hissed in response by: Steelhand at August 19, 2008 10:02 AM

The following hissed in response by: Baggi

I hate to sound so morbid but is there a chance that there is video of this out there?

This won't be "explosive" in the media unless there is video of a crying child in an abortion clinic/Chicago Hospital crying outside the mothers womb as the doctor kills or, or ignores it, while it's dying.

It's going to be tough to not vote for McCain this coming up election. I hope he proves me wrong about his character and doesn't choose someone like Joe Lieberman as his running mate.

The above hissed in response by: Baggi at August 19, 2008 11:54 AM

The following hissed in response by: hunter

This election is McCain's to lose. If he dissipates his momentum by choosing a Ridge or Lieberman, he will do to his election what bad US policy did in Vietnam: snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Obama, in every forum that demands manifestation of character and spontaneous thought, fails. Badly. This is not only tactically bad, it is corrosive of the goodwill he has fooled people into giving him.
But capricious McCain, always seeking to stick it in someone's eye, might lose this yet.

The above hissed in response by: hunter at August 19, 2008 12:01 PM